CRICKET CHAT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 259, 2 November 1932, Page 12

CRICKET CHAT

ENGLISHMEN’S TOUR COMMENT ON PLAYERS Asking a witness in a case heard recently at Barnsley, in Yorkshire, to estimate the distance a motor-car travelled, a solicitor inquired: “Was it the length of a cricket pitch?” The witness replied that he did not know the length of a cricket pitch. “Are you a Yorkshireman?” asked tho solicitor, then. “No,” replied tho witness. “That accounts for it,” rejoined the solicitor. Arthur Mailey tells the yarn (says an Australian writer). In tho match between New South Wales and Victoria, when tho Victorians compiled the staggering total of 1107, Mailey had been pasted unmercifully, his average being something like four wickets for 90 runs apiece. A newspaper man asked his view on tho match. “Well,” said Arthur gravely, “very few chances were given, but I think a chap in a blue serge suit dropped Ryder once in the shilling stand.”

Confidence goes a long way in any sport, and the success of the Australians in Test cricket has been assisted by the fact that the players realise usually that they have the confidence of tho public and of the Press when they embark upon a series of important" matches says an exchange. This point is made by Maurice Tate in a recent article in tho Yorkshire Post, in which the famous English cricketer states that every man jack of the English side should be made to feel that he is taking in his kitbag the confidence and the whole-hearted support of all those who stay at Home. With those things packed in his bag each man will strive a bit harder and give a bit more in the effort to justify such confidence. The Australians know the value of hefty spade work in this direction, and realise that this confident talk is worth while, but on the other hand one has the spectacle, whenever an English defeat occurs, of nearly all the newspaper writers in the land holding inquests and postmortems from a distance and often castigating unmercifully members of the team despite the fact that they cannot bo always fully aware of the peculiar conditions that might happen to exist. Such a lack of confidence in a team sent abroad is to be deplored, and this certainly is one direction in which the Australian public and Press is ahead of that of England. Maurice Tate’s appeal may have some result, but I am inclined to think that all sorts of explanations, weird and wonderful some of them, will be advanced should England go down to defeat in the first one or two matches of tho Test scries.

After tho matches at Perth, the M.C.C. team will proceed to Adelaide, and there, in the match with tho South Australians, the tourists will be able to decide for themselves whether there is any truth in tho rumour that Clarrio Grimmett, formerly of New Zealand, has a “mystery” ball, unless the wily bowler keeps something in reserve for the Tests. The South Australians have been practising for some two or throe weeks in preparation for this match. A few months ago it was announced that Grimmett had discovered a “mystery” ball, which cut ever so many capers before it hit the wicket. As a result of investigations, it was found that there was nothing in tho report. Since then, according to an Australian paper, Grimmett has been puzzling his brains to find a real mystery ball.

“I’ve got it!” he exclaimed the other day.

“And how do you work this one?” he was asked.

“Well, I set my field with the silly point very close to the pitch and about four or five yards from the batsman,” he answered. “Then I throw the ball fairly high in the air (to encourage the batsman to come out), at the same time dropping it short. The batsman leaves tho crease to meet tho ball—but the ball, instead of going on to the batsman, breaks at right angles into silly point’s hands, and this fieldsman promptly throws the batsman out.”